Riot between Hindus and Muslims leaves four dead, 175 injured. PHOTO: AFP
MUMBAI: A row over an unpaid restaurant bill in a western Indian city escalated into a riot between Hindus and Muslims that left four people dead and 175 injured, police said on Monday.
The unrest broke out in Dhule in Maharashtra state on Sunday, special inspector general Deven Bharti told AFP. Four rioters were killed by police firing while 113 policemen were among the injured, he said.
Bharti said investigations were still under way, but it appeared that a quarrel over a restaurant bill had provoked a mass brawl that left shops smashed, motorbikes burned and glass strewn across the streets.
Previous riots between Hindus and Muslims in Dhule, which has a population of about 400,000 and is located 330 kilometres from Mumbai, broke out in October 2008, leaving 10 dead.
"The restaurant owner was from one community and the customer from the other," Bharti explained, declining to name the parties involved.
"The customer went and took 50 people from his community and assaulted the restaurant owner, and people from the owner's community also gathered and started arsoning and rioting," he said.
Bharti said the police had used sticks, tear gas and plastic bullets before resorting to live ammunition to quell the trouble.
The area was put under a curfew that continued on Monday and was "peaceful and under control", he added.
COMMENTS (26)
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Indian police killed those innocent Muslims. You see the writer si trying to hide who is victim here because they killed Muslims and they dont want to show the world that they are the biggest democracy and killing minority in their country.......... wau......... India......
@Vikas: You are right why Muslims stayed back in India they need to struggle against to get their freemdom from India now. Pakistan is already free and now its the turn of Indian Muslims to start their freedom struggle to get rid of deprivatgion and marginalization from Hindu banya.
@Yoghurt lover: Brutal action will always remain brutal no matter who committed it. If Indian kill more than 5000 innocent Muslims in India in one day in Gujrat and killed more than million Muslims in Kashir during last decade, not because others are doing same but its the policy of the government to keeping killing and suppressing Muslims in particular. India must stop committing such brutality against the Indian Muslims. they are really deprived of their basic rights.
@Misery Ghalib: Ask what is the policy if the Indian Muslims claim their freedom? they need to be free from Hindu banya instead of migrating to Pakistan. Why dont they think to make another Pakistan within India because they are more in numbers than Muslims in Pakistan.
I am dead sure that those killed by Police are Muslims because India is a Hindu state and protects the hindus rather Indians. in 2008 Muslims were targetted and killed, in 2011 they were targetted and killed and the biggest number was killed in Gujrat where more than 5000 Muslims were brutally killed by hindu extremists backed by Indian police together. This is really an unfortunate that Muslims being minority are victims of arbitrary dentention, killing, looting and raping in India. In addition some hindu extremist parties target christians as well due to slow spreading of Christianity in India. As a matter of fact the Hindu caste system provides an opportunity to Christina missionaries to spread their religion by good incentives which is taken negative by Hindu extremists and they burnt churches back in 2008. In fact India is not a democratic country by its ruled by Hindu fuedals and extremists who support terrorism against minorities.
Yet another case study for the haters of the Two Nation Theory !!
Pakistan Zindabad !!
WE DO NOT CARE!
We killed Gandhi ourselves because he sided with Muslims.
Yes it was a 'riot' off-course and not 'persecution of minorities'! What else we can expect from you ET!?
@Grace: That is ridiculous. All the leaders of the Pakistan movement were the same 'Indian Muslims' who you say are not Pakistanis, Jinnah included - the only leader of national prominence from the region was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and we all know what his point of view was. I don't subscribe to the thinking behind the original comment by @Vikas, but your argument is just as ill-formed. You seem to forget that Pakistan is still bitter about Hyderabad, Junagadh etc which were 80% Hindu, or that erstwhile East Pakistan shares no such cultural linkages with Iran, ME, Central Asia etc - so was there a separate logic for each of these parts?. If the whole of India had indulged in the same post-partition violence against minorities that was witnessed in Punjab (on both sides) and in East Bengal (against Hindus), a lot more of Indian muslims would have ended up migrating - that is the simple answer to @Vikas's question. Most of India remained tolerant, which is why 85% of Indian muslims did not migrate.
@Yougurt Lover So you choose not to mention Kashmir?????
And We say India is a tolerant society with minority rights ..
@Grace
So, Pakistanis are predominantly Aryans or Arabs, in between all those supposed inter-mingling? I can't see much difference in Indo-Pak features unless one gets to GB and KP, or chances upon natives of GB and KP in Islamabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore. I can definitely see a differences in Pakistanis of Persian ancestry but they already have a distinct identity. They are Shias who are persecuted. I should know this well.
@Khaksar who writes "Muslims getting worried about a humanitarian crisis only when the victims are Muslims. Worse Irony still!!!"
YOU ARE 1000% WRONG. Muslims worry only when the victims are muslims and the perpetrators are non muslims (Uyghur, Gujarat, Rohingya, Assam, Israel etc).
Muslim don't care a hoot when the perpetrators are muslims (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Karachi, Afghanistan, 1971, Godhra, Babri Masjid, Bahrain...).
making of taliban
Why can't muslims live peacefully, no matter where they are?
@Pessimist Muslims getting worried about a humanitarian crisis only when the victims are Muslims. Worse Irony still!!!
@Misery Ghalib: The person & family is perfectly free to leave ndia just a s/he is free to migrate anywhere else, and no No Objection Certificate etc. is required. Settling in Pakistan depends on what type of permit is issued by Pakistan.
academic question - what is official policy if indian muslim wants to migrate from india and settle in pakistan?
the biggest democracy of the world..couldnt control a small brawl at the restaurant.*tsk!!
@Grace: nice and correct answer. For some years the narrative of partition has come to suggest that intention was to create country for all the Muslims in sub-continent. That view is apparent in @Vikas's comment and needs to be corrected.
When Muslims achieve success in India, the Indians say it's because their country is secular. When a Muslim does something wrong, it's blamed directly on Islam. Oh the irony..
@Vikas: Simple. They were fed secular India vaccine as it is done now-a-days.
@Vikas: No India is the homeland of India's Muslims. Most Indian Muslims share the same culture with their Hindu neighbours whereas in Pakistan the native people have a mixed culture which also has influence of of Western and Northern neighbours such as Iran, Middle East Central Asia. Pakistan was only meant to be for the Muslim area majority region and not meant to be a place for all Indian Muslims. There are more Muslims in India and in Bangladesh than in Pakistan. They should be respected as citizens of those countries. At the same time Sikhs, Hindus and Christians should be given the same rights as others in Pakistan.
@Vikas: Instead of posting your opinion here across the border, perhaps ask your muxlim neighbor that question?
I don't know why Muslims stayed back in India, when Pakistan was supposed to be the homeland of Muslims in the Indian sub continent?